A hearing device is a device which compensates for the hearing loss of a user. A hearing device is usually worn at an ear or in the ear of the user. Additional devices such as a remote control may be considered to be part of the hearing device.
Usually, it takes some time for a user to get used to a hearing device. This process is called acclimatization and may take e.g. from several weeks up to half a year. Typically, hearing devices are tuned by a specialist such as an audiologist. It has been shown that acclimatization can be made more comfortable for a user if the intensity of the hearing device is initially low and is increased gradually during an acclimatization phase until target intensity is reached. Practically, this means that the hearing device user has to return to the specialist several times for a retuning. At each visit the intensity of the hearing device is increased.
In order to reduce the number of visits necessary and to make the adjustment more steady, it has been proposed to increase the intensity of hearing device automatically, a feature which is termed in this document “automatic acclimatization management”.
For example, EP-B1-1 208 723 discloses a hearing device which automatically adjusts itself in time. The starting point as well as the end point of a parameter are defined according to the needs of the hearing device user. The adjustment is stepwise upon a trigger, which can be a clock event, an on-off event, a battery-replacement event or an event indicating that a knob has been operated a number of times. However, this solution has the disadvantage that the preferences of the user are not taken into account. The algorithm evaluates how long or how much the hearing device is used and not with which settings the hearing device is used. The hearing device is not able to determine if the user prefers a faster or a slower increase of the intensity of the hearing device.
It is to be noted that the term “automatic acclimatization management” generally means the adjustment which is activated when the hearing device is switched on, but the adjustment may then be modified by the hearing device user during everyday operation using a user control. Usually, such a modification by the hearing device user is “lost” once the hearing device is switched off and on again, since the user control is generally intended to adjust the hearing device to momentary situations and not for long-term adjustment or acclimatization management. However, it is known to statistically evaluate such settings by the user and to determine a new power-on-value for parameters based on such statistics. Such a feature is hereinafter called “user preference learning”.
For example, WO 2009/049 672 A1 discloses a hearing device with learns from current user settings. If the user selects a higher volume and keeps this setting for an extended period of time, the power-on-volume is automatically adjusted. When the user switches on the hearing device the next time, the start volume will be a bit louder. Once the user gets used to a first volume, he or she might select then a higher second volume, then an even higher third volume etc. However, not all users show this behavior and after half a year, despite of the preference learning algorithm, the power-on-volume may still be the same. Conventional “user preference learning” is therefore not well suited for acclimatization management. In conventional “user preference learning”, it is not possible to define a target value towards which the learning is biased. A similar known teaching is disclosed by US 2007/203726 A1.